


First Kiss

by RobberBaroness



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22206532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: He should have known from the first kiss.
Relationships: Gawain/Bertilak de Hautdesert
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	First Kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fair_Feather_Friend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fair_Feather_Friend/gifts).



In retrospect, he should have known from the first kiss.

To touch the skin of a creature of magic is different than touching a mortal man. There is a spark, a feel of shock that runs through the body, and a chill that speaks of first winter snow. The Green Knight had carried with him the signs of the changing seasons, and in his human form Bertilak felt of the same elemental, ever-shifting source of life. The kiss lasted only for a moment, but if that had been the only kiss they shared, Gawain would have remembered it for the rest of his life.

There had been no explanation needed. He had simply taken it for granted that his host was the most heavenly being he had ever met, and that to kiss him must be an equally heavenly experience. But it was not heaven he felt that night. It was something deeper and older, born of the land just as same as the holly and the ivy.

“You have hunted well,” Bertilak said with a warm smile. “Wherever did you find such a treasure?”

“No questions,” said Gawain. “Isn’t that how the game is played?”

The game. Nothing but blasted games. Again, it should have been a clue from the very beginning. But Gawain had first been too frightened and then too enraptured to question his circumstances. When it had finally all been revealed to him, he felt the utter fool, but Bertilak held none of it against him.

“You have done your best,” he said, “and your best is pleasing.”

He was scarcely more beautiful as the Green Knight than as Bertilak, and in that moment, the two men were entwined. The kindhearted host and the coldhearted giant, the same twisting, changing figure, winter and spring eternally combined.

To go to bed with a man made of magic was much like kissing him.


End file.
